Mental Ruins
by IncognitoFoxxo
Summary: We all know Nick was brought up in the slums but with no parents and in a completely different environment that would be similar to one 1000 years ago, Nick loses his parents completely due to a false accusation of a crime and seeks vengeance on the city that did nothing but derogate him since a kit. (Zootopia AU) (Rated M for graphic scenes)
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: So the story behind this one… It's a long one. But the story itself is here now and it's a bit different to the usual Zootopia fics out there. Let me know if you want more of this AU or it'll only be a concise 5 chapter story.**_

 _Mental Ruins part I_

The hooded fox crept across rooftops, bow across his back and arrows in their holster, wrapped around his right leg, whilst a dagger sat comfortably in its sheath that dangled from his left leg. By that description plus a hood, you could tell what he was, an assassin.

But go back 1000 years to the high medieval period, it may not have been as easy to spot him in amongst soldiers who roamed the streets with halberds and Messers. The fox in his twenties preferred the rooftops to the cobbled roads and took lightly to the idea of completing assignments to hunt someone down and kill them. The fox named himself Nick after having no recollection of his family, origin or age, he knew that he was in his twenties and he called himself Nicholas Piberious Wilde. Quite a peculiar name for someone who doesn't even know their own name but at least it was convincing. He was well educated despite a lack of schooling and once he figured out his parents had been wrongly accused of a crime and they had been hung, he retaliated against everything the economically booming wooden city stood for.

He devised becoming an assassin, picking off at the city's population of law abiding citizens who got on the wrong side of the people he received his jobs from by killing senselessly for the money Nick ever so dearly desired. Despite being a fox and concealing his identity from his suppliers of the jobs he took, he managed to rack up quite the reputation in the criminal community. He was the best archer who was willing to go against the morals of the city and not join the army. He was the best archer in the city alone, out of the 20,000 people who inhabited it. He basically didn't exist on paper though, no records of taxes because he didn't own anything, he just napped down alleys and on rooftops rather than owning a house.

The hood he wore drew a shadow across his face and only outlined his muzzle which had the contrast between his lava red fur above his thin black lips and the cream tinted fur situated under his chin running back to the darkness. The tip of his muzzle was a midnight purple snout that was followed by a treble of black dots halfway down either side of his muzzle. He had been mistreated as a kit and had a small scar outlined a scratch he'd received across his cheek as a kit. It didn't take a genius to figure out he was being bullied as a child, but after holding the lid down to his pale of ire that occasionally spilt out onto a pedestrian by a shoulder barge, he eventually blew the top off and nearly beat one of the kids to death. The first time he did kill someone was when he found out who killed his parents and after a few months of misery for the mammal who made the definite decision to hang them, the misery inflicted being presented in the form of physical pain. The mammal was captured by the witty teenager who tortured the mammal day in and day out. That pain he caused was all for his parents and their lives being taken from each other and their son. In the city no one completely lost their parents as someone would find their orphan on the street and adopt them as their own, but who wanted to raise a peasant fox? No one. He was more raised by his friend in the future. The 6-year-old Fennec and the baby Red Fox were a meek face you couldn't say no to, racking up hundreds of tossed coins a day, just from purely begging. As Nick grew older and they both stayed on the streets, the Fennec, Finnick, had taught him all about the actually interesting things in the city and not the religion they were forced to learn about in school. They spent their time teaching each other things as they grew up, Nick was more the Outrider out of the pair and Finnick was the brawler. Despite his size, he knew how to take any mammal down, whether that be a bear or a mouse. They furthered each other's knowledge by teaching skills in combat and applying them to mammals they regarded as a waste of space. However as they grew, so did the distance between them. Eventually, Finnick ended up having to move many miles away due to being deemed as a nuisance who needed to be hung. Nick wouldn't let Finnick go the same way his parents did so, forced him to leave whilst Nick was learning how to throw a knife accurately, he still couldn't get the aim right and was set on teaching himself how to apply that very useful skill in combat. However, Nick was only 14 when he was learning this combat skill before Finnick had to flee and since, he has never returned.

Today was not the day of a falsely accused mammal or one of his friends to be hung and instead, it was the day of a suspected witch to be burned. Nick pitied almost every female who was hung because she was deemed as a witch. He knew it was all fake, he didn't know whether he thought that because the king believed strongly in witchcraft and thought repugnantly of anything that came from the king's mouth or anyone of a higher social class' mouth or whether it was because it never existed until now. Either way, Nick would believe that it's a bunch of junk that the fragile government made up in order to pick off thousands of innocent victims and each one they mindlessly murdered just gave them more authority over everyone in the country. That's the only reason Nick was opposed to it, he wasn't for the fact that people lost wives, mums and friends because of it. It was one of the traits that made him so hardy but yet so disrespectful.

The sun started to set as Nick was slowly closing his eyes after the days of sleep he'd missed and the time he had to kill persuaded him to close them fully. Just the thought of waiting another second made him further more fatigued. Before he knew it, he was head down on the roof in a deep slumber.

A few minutes later, he shot awake due to the sound of screams erupting from the burning mammal down by the centre of the courtyard the execution was being held in. He panted back to a steady breath in recovery from the nightmare he had. The screams he couldn't help but imagine as his parents' screams. Despite him having no recollection of his parents in the slightest, being only a baby when Finnick found him, his imagination still ran wild with thoughts of the angst they went through. The screams and exclamations of pain were mostly sourced by Nick's own killings and the pain he put his own victims through. But that was all for a cause, he lost his parents to a wrongful conviction, that wasn't a sufficient enough cause for him to accept and what he was here for today _was_ a sufficient enough cause. He was there for a ram who believed in killing all people who didn't believe in his faith.

Nick spent roughly fifteen to twenty minute scanning the crowd who were waiting for the second victim of false accusations to be emasculated then disembowelled. This mammal committed treason and this was the one people were waiting for. Children were watching as the beaten mammal was pushed onto the wooden stage.

He knew that no one would care about the ram's disappearance, therefore making it far easier for everyone involved to get away with the murder. One thing that drove Nick to be extra careful with kills like this was that he may end up like the people on the stage if he was caught, that was if he was caught. Then he rejoiced as the scribbled scribing on the torn bit of paper Nick was holding matched to a face in the crowd.

Nick drew a wide smirk across his muzzle before stuffing the paper into his pocket. He carefully pulled the bow from across his back and held it with his right paw. Grabbing a lengthy steel tipped wooden arrow from its holster led him to line the stick up with the bowstring. He stood up with the night covering his identity by plastering the sky behind him, and he pulled the bowstring back, pulling tension on the arrow. His target was only a couple dozen yards away, he could hit that easy with concentration. He closed his left eye and held the bow up to his chest whilst aiming slightly above the target. He took a deep breath and distanced himself from the setting he was in.

As he released the tension, a shout from the next victim in line for death shocked him into slightly twitching and sent the arrow flying towards a rabbit beside Nick's target. He kicked the roof whilst exclaiming "Sard!".

Anyone who hadn't caught on to the archer standing on the slated roof from the shot he missed was now aware of his presence, especially after the curse he just shouted. In amongst the eyes that stared at the hooded fox on the roof, there were guards who of course tried to act like the heroes and do their duty rather than continue with their planned execution. Nick felt obliged to sigh and slide down the opposite side of the roof, away from the now fury infused crowd and the ram was part of it. The main reason for the mob being that an innocent bunny was ruthlessly murdered in front of children, in front of her parents. He didn't feel any guilt though, why should he? He was doing a job and it went wrong. Nick was more annoyed at the tyrant mammal who screamed when he was just about to take the shot. Now the ram was probably going to get away and kill more of Nick's contacts. Nick had messed up and this was the first and last time something like this would ever happen.

The heavily armed guards that stood like high rise apartments began to sprint towards the fox who had made the worst mistake of his life. If they caught him, he was going to be in trouble for many reasons. Mainly because the amount of distress he caused to the public and that they'd be able to put a face to the countless number of murders that occurred in the city, all sourcing from one fox outrider. They know that someone who was extremely skilled with a bow was causing the deaths due to the targets they were hitting and the fact that Nick accidentally left one of his arrows in one of his victims along with a little bit of his orange fur intertwined with the feather end of the arrow. All anyone knew is that whoever was the cause of these 'mysterious' deaths was a fox who possessed the skill of archery.

However, back in the moment, Nick was creeping behind houses in the shadows in an attempt to lose his pursuers and he was doing a pretty good job of it in the market. That didn't mean he was completely safe. He was only hiding under a farmer's stall, anyone could have lifted the cloth that covered him and found him under there. But as it was night, no one hung around the market and that was the place he was least likely to be found until the morning, so he stayed the night; under a wooden stall in amongst some boxes filled with carrots and lettuce.

Despite the silence, he could barely sleep. Every slight movement put him on edge. The shadows of drunk mammals returning their abodes caused shadows to creep across the floor to which Nick would dig his teeth into his lips and claws into the wood as the tension climaxed when they walked by. Nothing had put Nick on edge more than this and this was a serious life or death situation. Whilst the guards searched the area where he was last seen which was on the rooftops, he prayed that they wouldn't lift up the sheet of fabric to reveal his cowering body ripe for execution.

* * *

In the morning after he'd drooled away on top of one of the boxes his head was resting on, he almost got blinded by the intensity of light that poured in from a hole in the stall from the sunrise. That was when he came to the conclusion that he had to move, or the guards would be there within a few hours to fetch him.

Lifting his head up, he hit it on the wood that confined him and let out a short "Ow" filled with rage at the dark wood that was planted in the way of his head room. The sudden burst of pain was endured before proceeding on to push his weak woken body into action once more. He sighed and pulled his hood down whilst letting his head rest on one of the cobbles below, it was uncomfortable but it was the only way to breathe a sigh of relief in peace and quiet… so he thought.

"I _am_ lifting them, Pa!" It was the shout of a young doe that made Nick want to snap someone's neck. The bunny that was shouting over to someone was most likely the owner of the stall Nick was using as a temporary safe zone.

A buck, presumably her father, dropped a box beside Nick's head causing him to flinch. The other bunny started to sniff in tears due to the emotional angst she was experiencing. "She just died and I didn't do anything to stop her or anything at all, I just stood there watching her corpse rot." Her compassionate father placed his paw on her shoulder.

"You couldn't have done anything more for her."

"She was my sister pa, my best friend and I watched her die because _of that_ fox. If I see him, I'm going to kill him!" Nick couldn't help but snigger at that. Despite the conversation that orbited around melancholy, Nick found light in it. Death didn't faze him as it was part of his job; to bring death early for the unfortunate mammals who made it onto the wrong side of one of his contacts. "I swear I just heard something." He forgot about their sensitive hearing with them being bunnies and landed himself under the investigation of a rabbit who was supposedly going to kill him if she saw him.

Before she could warn her father out a possible danger out somewhere in the sparse streets, he was on his way back to the waggon they'd delivered their country produce in.

She lifted the sheet up in order to stock the box she was lifting under the stall and was greeted with the startled face of the criminal who matched the 'wanted' posters that were pinned around the town. He had a hood, he was a fox. He was the ideal person for the bounty set to be claimed or to be killed by someone who had a bone to pick or a family member to avenge. Nick _knew_ that they'd have a bounty on him by now otherwise, people would be asking the fragile government why they weren't going to do anything about an innocent bunny that got murdered and consequently plunging the government into a state of becoming distrusted by the public, therefore diminishing the power they had over people. A power they thrived off and couldn't live without, it got so bad that anything the king said would be believed by at least half the population, despite its nonsensicality. The worst culprits for this were country mammals who weren't educated in the slightest so had no reason to think otherwise. This doe who gawped at Nick was included in that country mammal category, no matter how much she tried to escape to the city to get a taste of a life there, it wasn't easy to reverse a set bias towards whoever possessed the glorious crown.

The bunny gasped and turned around with her paws cupped around her mouth, ready to shout. "P-" Nick had ceased her speech as he slapped his paw onto her mouth to silence her. But it was too late, she'd already caught her father's attention and he was there in a heartbeat.

Nick groaned before restraining the weeping doe by her neck, letting her shout all she could, it didn't make a difference as it was too early in the morning for any citizens to actually be roaming the streets and the houses surrounding the courtyard wouldn't hear her small shout. "Pa!" she shrieked in an attempt to fuel her father to save her from the crazed fox holding her hostage in his arms.

Nick flipped the dagger he had on his right leg and held it up to her throat, silencing the doe into suffering more fear, this time from the blade that brushed against her neck. "If you move any closer, you know what's gonna happen." Nick pushed the blade up against her neck with added force to threaten her further.

"Help! Anyone!" The buck who Nick had warned not to come closer shouted for help and with his shout being a lot more dominant and vocally boosted than his daughter's, it was lucid that Nick had to move whether he killed her father or not. It was just down to the decision whether to trust this buck with the information that was most precious to the Reynard: His face. No one could forget a face and certainly, the buck opposite him wouldn't forget the one that was holding a knife to his daughter's throat.

He could either throw the knife at her father to prevent the information from spreading or he could kidnap her to hold it as a threat but cause a whole lot of trouble in the process. He growled at the anger that was brewing, not just from her father yelling at the top of his voice for help, but the annoying dilemma he was glued into. He started to cause yet another feeling of dread bonded with terror and fear within the doe in his arms as he displayed his set filled with the seemingly sharp teeth that were tailored to a mammal of exactly her species.

As he let out a curse directed towards the buck that went something along the lines of "Cunt!", the buck ceased to shout due to the insult he'd just received that stood to be morally more offensive than the one he'd exclaimed on the roof the night prior in anger directed towards no one in particular but this was intentionally aimed at him. The bunny in Nick's arms was now trembling with fear due to the sound of his shout protruding amongst the other yells and pleas her father begged.

Nick ended up choosing the second option of sparing her father as it would provide him with the opportunity to get away from the city that held the streets to his dark past. It would be an opportunity to breathe and take some time away from the jobs of continuously killing people for money, he had enough as it was, why did he need more? He could deal with trouble and if anything was wore than the predicament he was in right then, he would be drowning in a sea of negative consequences.

Nope, he changed his mind. Aiming the knife at the buck's head and throwing the non-aerodynamic piece of metal welded together, it, instead of hitting the designated target, had dug deep into the sinews of his shoulder, causing him to bleed excessively, the only thing to stop him from losing lots of blood was the knife that seemed to plug the stab wound. Nick was unsure whether he was going to die or not as he kicked himself wishing that Finnick was here so he didn't have to run the chance of missing that shot, but life got in the way and he was here now with a bunny in his arms and a buck yelping in pain on the floor. As Nick entranced himself in nostalgia, the bunny found a strength she didn't have before and ripped herself from his grasp to run over to help her father. Before he'd even got chance to say a proper goodbye, Nick began to sprint off in an attempt to flee from the scene and proceed with his original plan but unlucky for him, the doe heard his pattering footsteps trailing down the cobblestone streets so stopped her goodbyes and mainly focused on providing the little medical knowledge she knew.

The rabbit who was in an emotional wreck mere seconds ago was now wiping away her tears for fears of the fox who had taken to two of her family members away from her and instead replaced them with courage. She pried the knife from her father's shoulder and tied a ripped part of the table cloth around his shoulder. After completing all this in under 30 seconds she proceeded to close the gap between her and Nick, but she was at an advantage, she only had overalls one whilst Nick lugged around his bow along with the arrows in their holster that rattled around on his left leg whilst he had an empty sheath with a flapping flap wrapped around his other thigh. He was more fit than she was, however. The only anomaly to the chase was that Nick thought he was only putting distance between him and the scene where a buck had got murdered, unaware that his daughter was seeking vengeance and acting like the guard she never got to be whilst closing the gap that started at a chain and currently stood as a couple of poles.

Once Nick saw her shadow he was already fatigued and out of breath. He couldn't go further and with the knowledge that he had a doe thirsty for his blood closing the gap on him, he turned around and running towards her, he easily caught up. He grasped her arms and slammed her against a tree in amongst the dense forest he ceased their chase at. She dropped the dagger and Nick hastily flinched his foot in order to avoid the incoming blade. "Why are you following me!?" He was panting back to a steady breath as he pinned her against the tree.

Nick was annoyed at her. He killed some buck so she could leave him alone and now he was going to get followed anyway. He tore away someone's dad, friends and colleague, therefore, creating new enemies. That was the only thought that stopped him from killing witnesses right away but in this unusual situation, Nick had earned himself a bunny set on trying to kill him whilst he created yet more enemies on top of the Nemesis-like relations he already held with other mammals.

However, her reply was bold, courageous and caused a lot of respect to arise from Nick for her.

She only went and spat in his face.


	2. Chapter 2

_**I'm SOOOOOO sorry for not uploading for at least a month, but my laptop 'mysteriously' fell down the stairs and I had to replace the wretched old thing. Now I have a faster laptop with chick keys so I should have chapters out a little faster and I can only apologise for the lack of uploads over the past few weeks. Hopefully, the few people who read this are going to enjoy it and if you are enjoying this concept then please stick around for the next chapter because lots of drama is going to take place.**_

Mental Ruins part II:

Nick wiped the saliva off his face with his scarred paw and chuckled whilst shaking his head slowly in a derogatory manner as he grabbed his dagger off the floor and replaced his paws with the knife on his victim's neck. "Excuse me, _carrots_?" He hadn't really thought about a nickname for her but associating a bunny with something wasn't too hard.

The doe pinned against the trunk of the tree behind her was silent. She had nothing to say if she said anything he would most likely kill her without any hesitation right there and then. "I'm going to ask you again. Why are you following me?"

She shrugged her restrained shoulders ever so slightly and Nick leaned in closer to her face with a knife against her throat building pressure. "Are you gonna speak or act like you're as useful as a corpse? Because that can sure be arranged."

The six-inch knife Nick was grasping that threatened to tear the skin of the fearful bunny and as it flashed in the dawning sun, it temporarily blinded her until a cough of the breeze pushed the trees into the sun's path. Nick pushed it further causing her now to feel pain as it started to dig into her skin. "Okay okay okay! I'll talk!" Nick's ears raised at the sudden introduction he had to her voice and he released the mounting pressure on her neck. She felt her neck and enjoyed the freedom she had until she was met by Nick placing his paws on his knees and spoke sarcastically to her with a sense of contemptuousness about the action. "Is our bunny gonna speak or is our fox here going to have to show her where lying gets you?"

She'd come up with an ingenious solution to obtain the answer to the most prized question of all. "I'll answer yours after you answer mine."

He wasn't too judgmental with what she was going to say as what's the worst thing she can say? "Hit me with it."

"Why did you kill my sister?"

"I don't have to tell you that!" Nick was shocked that he'd even let himself reason with a bunny in the first place.

"Well, I guess I don't tell you why I'm following you."

"Well, I can easily 'dispose' of this follower in a heartbeat so either you tell me or your rotting corpse does."

"You killed my sister; my father. You killed the people I care most about and you see it as nothing!"

"I don't care about your family, it was a mistake that's gonna lead to me getting hunted down so either you're coming with me or- no, you are coming with me because you'll blab about what I look like." That was something this bunny couldn't deny. He was attractive and as his eyes twinkled from the sun glare she stood there gawping at him, she didn't know whether she was memorising his facial features or mesmerising herself with them. Whatever it was, that didn't exclude him from the actions he'd committed. The only thought she could think was What a shame that a demon lays beneath that silky, soft, luscious, attrac- What am I doing?! She shook herself from them thoughts, disgusted with herself for even thinking of them. But she was fearful of the unknown and what might come of him in the time she was shackled to his ankle. Little did she know that in the day, the ruthless assassin that oozed with violence and terror morphed into a middle-class fox named 'Nick'.

He slipped the dagger into its sheath after wiping the blood from her father off of it and onto the forest floor. "What are you gonna do with me?"

"Keep you away from anyone for a few days until this all dies down and then you can go back to mourn over your dead family and then no one will believe you when you tell them what I look like as they'll give it more thought and as they know nothing about me they'll just think you're a greedy beggar who thinks they can claim the bounty."

"What are you gonna do with me though?"

Nick sighed as she started to repeat the question only for him to shout in her face whilst muttering it. "I DON'T KNOW! You follow me out here and mess my life up, so the least you could do is shut up." Nick was annoyed that all because he pulled his hood down he couldn't let a bunny leave his side for a few days.

Nick sat on the slender blades of grass that held the morning due from the winter-like night they had. The bunny who was still grasping her neck saw his stress, saw he was annoyed, saw he was punishing himself. As much as she wanted to comfort him, she couldn't knowing what he'd done to her family. The most she could do without feeling any hate towards him was introduce herself. After all, he had to have a reason, and even though he was too stubborn to tell her that reason, she was rooting to get to it and what better way to get to it than with a false sense of trust. He grabbed her attention with a sigh as he stared hopelessly downwards into the ground before him.

"Judy..." He glanced up to see her paw directed towards him. She introduced herself to him no matter how much she hated him all because she wanted to betray his trust once she had built it and avenge her family along with many other families in the process.

A depleted, depressed, demeaned tod gazed up at her and almost grabbed her paw to follow it up with his name before remembering the one key moral in his life: don't trust anyone. He shook his head with a scoff and stood up after clearing his head. He felt as though this bunny was innocent and naive. She didn't know what actually being an assassin meant. She was blind to how rude and contemptuous his lips could part to be. How resentful and reluctant he could be. How evil he could be.

He frowned, annoyed with himself for even thinking of giving her his name. "Look, carrots. I don't care what your name is, I couldn't care any less about who you are. All I know is that if you don't shut your mouth, the road ends here for you." That seemed to silence her, especially with the knowledge of his brutality and his current appearance consisting of a knife and a bow that she presumed he didn't know how to use.

* * *

After a few hours of wandering mindlessly with the cover of shadows for safety, Nick finally sighed and turned around to his hostage. He was fed up with her trying to flee and caught her every single time whilst on the contrary, she believed that he could slip on one of her escaping attempts and escape.

"If you even dare say anything to anyone about this I will slice your throat, cut your limbs off and throw you in hell's pit." Judy was scared for many reasons. The threats he was making were becoming more graphic and the thought that if she got caught with him she'd be executed was daunting and cause paranoia to dwell deep within her veins. But she hadn't got time to think of that as Nick was rolling up his sleeves, taking his hood down and seemed to be less inclined to hold his anonymous status.

Nick was now Nick and not the nameless, merciless fox he was when she met him. He seemed normal. Like a peasant fox. Like a normal fox.

He closed his eyes before taking a deep breath and proceeded out of the forest onto a dirt track. As he proceeded down the track with Judy tailing him, a low drone of mumbling that rose in volume as they neared until greeted by a small village that had nothing more than a couple dozen houses in. Nick laid low in this rural village. It was a ten-hour walk from the city and was where Nick rented a small cabin. He had enough money to rent it, even if he wasn't in it all year round or every day. It was still somewhere he could get his things together, lay low and sort himself out.

He strode through the thin cobbled street overhung by poorly built cramped houses. They were the houses that were built for the purpose of it being there than having comfort as the primary thought. "Nick! What's with that bow here?" Nick cringed as now the bunny behind him knew his name.

"I was polishing up my shot down at training." Nick started to walk off as the horse he was speaking to replied. He delved into his pocket and picked out a singular key as he approached a rather dull looking house. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching him, he pushed the key in and swiftly unlocked the door before pushing Judy in and following after.

He slammed the door shut as he glanced around the state he'd left it in last. Judy couldn't see anything as the sunlight was completely absent. Nick struck some flint and set the fireplace alight as Judy crept up the stairs, persisting to escape her capture and now she was stuck in a house with him. "No windows are open by the way!" Nick shouted through the floorboards and she froze, stunned that he realised she was gone, she was silent, hadn't made a sound, and yet he had known she was creeping up the stairs without even having to glance around.

She chuckled awkwardly. "Why do you keep trying to leave, it's not like I'm going to eat you, I need you alive."

"Okay, why do you need me alive... Nick." He took a deep breath to calm himself down before responding.

"Because, carrots, you are delivering a message- no, you are a message. Once you go back to the city, you're going to tell those assholes that I'm not who I really am, that I am a grey fox who is bad at archery and lives in the rural parts in the north of the country." Judy didn't object, mainly because she couldn't face the scaremongering fox shouting at her. But it wasn't the shout that drove her fear, oh no no no, it was his teeth. His sharp set of teeth that sat behind his black pair of lips. Being a country bunny, she rarely got out of the burrow and when she did, she almost never spoke to a predator, let alone one that's her enemy by nature.

She just rolled her eyes at him as he blew the dust off counter tops and the chairs. The room slowly brightened due to the introduction of light from the candles dotted around the room that only caused more dust to become visible. The room on the ground floor Nick was dusting to make actually inhabitable was bland, then again, the only light she had was the orange tinted light of the flames that screamed their way up the walls until crossing each other's paths on the ceiling where the shadow of a fox daunted over her. The same fox that killed two of her family members and that itself was unforgivable.

"Look, when I first saw you- up on that roof. I-I didn't think I would find you under my stall the next day. I didn't mean to cause what I have for you by calling my dad over. I was scared. You were a fox who was good at archery, what else could I have done. But can you see why I acted how I did and feel how I do? Can you at least feel what it's like to lose people you care so much about?" It was all getting too real for Nick, he was getting flashbacks to his parents. Not like they were flashbacks. They were self-induced delusions that had pictured the scene of losing his probably loving, caring parents. And then when Finnick left, he knew the pain. It was draining. It was horrid. To know that one of you best friends or relatives had died to another man's cause. It was sickening and simply abhorrent to know their lives were cut short. If Nick had been convicted of his past crimes, the wergild would be unaffordable and would have had to be simply hanged. But he wasn't caught, and he wasn't going to by some naive little bunny, desperate to get her paws on a blade to slice his throat. He understood that she was trying to make the most of it, then betray him. He knew that, but something seemed to contradict that. He didn't know whether it was due the moment of clarity they had before he was forced to threaten her with a knife against her throat or if it was because of her naive and preposterous persona. Whatever it was, he was starting to fall for her.

She found him attractive, but what he did, that was unforgivable. His attitude was vile, disrespectful and sarcastic; and she thought repugnantly of it. However, he was actually respecting her as much as a hostage goes. What she did when she was pinned against a tree was the event that triggered all of the respect he felt for her right then. He would've just killed her when they got to his wooden shack he called a house but he didn't. He couldn't. He didn't know why. Even though he had only said a handful of things to her, he felt as though she was more than an animal. His feelings were all messed up from everything that had happened in the past to people he lost, but he knew he felt something for this doe. She was different to everyone else. She was special.

Nevertheless, he continued to drill into her with his abrupt answers to her inquisitive questions. She noticed by the silence following her question pecking at burrieved tod's mentality that she was getting to him. She was playing with his mind and felt kind of smug for that before he snapped. "Why do they mean anything to you!?" Within a matter of seconds, she was pinned against the wall of his shack-like abode and he was almost reduced to tears as she hit him where he couldn't ever prepare himself for.

He had probably lost more mammals than she could ever imagine. Countless partners in crime probably. She felt some guilt for putting him through that emotional angst he was feeling. But then she remembered, he had killed two members of her family without and regret.

As she sought for words to fill his excuse-hungry ears, he continued to glare at her, demanding an answer. "My point was that we've all lost people."

"And my point was that maybe you shouldn't open your little pie hole because you don't know anyone's past. You don't know what I've had to put up with and when you lose 2 people you turn bloodthirsty for my blood. You know what, you would have done me a favour by killing me back there, but do you know what made me do what I did, what I am now?" He was waiting for a reply only to hear her gulp followed by a shake her head that was disconcerting due to her discomfort. "Dignity. The only thing you gain by rolling over to other people is death. So, next time you ask "can I know what it's like to lose people?", the answer is yes I have. More than you will ever lose." Nick let his guard down and she tried to make a break for the door before he leapt at her, pinning her to the floor whilst fixing her wrist to her lower back and holding it there with his knee whilst holding her head down with his paw. "You wanna try that again?"

Judy was speechless, she couldn't form words with her mentally frozen lips. She was spellbound to the wooden planks that made up the floor even when he got off her. She felt true fear in that moment. A predator pinning a prey down to the floor, making sure she was immobile was something to evoke fear in any mammal who played the victim in that situation.

Nick yawned, forcing all his predatory signs to growl at Judy, who was sweeping herself off the floor. His claws stretched out stabbing at her mentality, his deceptively sharp fangs that pierced her already cautious mindstate. Then just as she was on the edge of screaming in fear, his long lapping tongue curled whilst he winced. In the brief moment where she gazed at his tongue, her mind ran with salacious thoughts and pushed aside the fear that was previously evoked.

She couldn't help but blush. Them thoughts were something she couldn't turn down and the view of his rather toned torso pushed her into a state where she couldn't help but blush. She didn't know why he was such a sight to her. He was the opposite of what she aspired to be, yet his body stole her heart.

He could see the patches of red in the base of her ears and felt like teasing her. "Look, carrots, if you love me so much then why try to run away?"

She couldn't reply as wittily as he could and the comment only forced a further strained streak of red to arise in her ears. "N-no! How could I love anyone like you? How could I ever love a fox?" That was the same question she continued to ask herself over and over in an attempt to draw herself away from the irresistibly attractive fox stood before her.

"That stutter says otherwise." He was starting to push her buttons, it was intentionally done as well.

"I don't!" Her response was snappy, frankly and vex filled. So much so that the message got across to the tod who was purposely grinding her gears.

"Look carrots, just before the idea comes into youth head that there may be a chance between us. I'm just gonna reiterate now that I don't want anything to do with you after you cover my ass." Judy glared at Nick with her ears hanging off the side of her head as she titled it in confusion.

"Why would I cover your ass if you don't want anything to do with me?" Nick was rather shocked at the audacity of the doe who he'd just pinned to the floor.

"I seem to have already killed a couple of your family members… you wouldn't want me to me to build a thief gravestone with the name 'Judy' on it, would you?" She gulped, knowing full well that he would do it without hesitation as he had done with the last two of her most treasured relatives. "Besides that… I'm gonna catch up on sleep." Judy was plotting all sorts of ways to murder him or put him through immense pain but then the sudden realisation came that is she did that, she'd be as bad as him. She pushed them thoughts aside and instead focused on the main plot of escaping unnoticed to consequently lead to the ordainment of Nick's hanging. However, these plans were shattered when he reminded her of the locks he had on the door and windows. "Don't even think about trying to leave. You know I have locks on the doors and windows."

She huffed and stood there as she watched him launch himself onto the hide wrapped couch in the middle of the room. His tail covered his waist as it wrapped around the thin black material that hung loosely off his body. She heard his bow and knock against the wooden flooring followed by his collection of arrows and his dagger. The weight of the weapons he carried was incomparably heavy and just created a foul sense of discomfort so he shed them onto the coarse planks that surfaced the floor.

She stood behind him eager to leave them as soon as she took a step near the door he called her out. "Didn't you hear what I just said?!"

She rolled her eyes at his predictable action. She wanted him to doze off so she could leave with the absence of his detection… so she waited.

After a series of snorts from the fox who twitched every now and then, Judy concluded that he was deep into a nap. She carefully stepped towards the door, the floor creaking with every step. She glanced over at the fireplace and noticed his slim arm hanging limply over the arm of the couch. She lost herself in her own vivid risqué imagination by noticing the sharp edges of his claws and picturing them being used inappropriately on her body. Trailing down her chest and abdomen before bridging over her waist and going further to- No she couldn't be thinking like this. He was a ruthless killer. Not a sex toy. Why was she thinking this way? The sooner she got out, the sooner these cravings would cease. If she wasn't going to kill him what she was going to do was take his most prized weapons.

She diverted her route to accommodate her new mischievous idea and with each step she took, her anxiety climbed further. She was in the fox's personal space right now and if he was alerted, the outcome was certainly going to turn south on her, what the outcome was though, was still uncertain. Judy crept past the rear of the couch and Nick's wet snout came into view. He was clearly dreaming of something euphoric as he was smiling. It was a true smile and not the smirk he continued to pull on her. That smile made him seem innocent. It made him seem undeniably cute and she refused to admit it herself but it was fixed in the back of her mind.

She was clutching his dagger in her paw as she fiddled with the locking mechanism for the door and when she heard the click to signify her newfound freedom, she wrapped her digits around the door knob. Unfortunately for her, that click doubled as an alarm for the dazed tod.

He shot his eyes open and before she got a chance to open the door and arrow went flying right beside her head. "Don't you _fucking_ move!"

She froze. Not only had she been found trying to escape, but she was caught clutching his dagger. "I-I-I-"

"I-I-I- what? I _accidentally_ unlocked the chain lock and you _accidentally_ grabbed my dagger in the process? Is that what _accidentally_ happened?" She was speechless once again, this time he was more aggressive, more vocal, more… violent.

She handed him the dagger, begging for forgiveness and when Nick raised his paw she only felt a scratch coming her way. Them claws digging into her cheek. He was milliseconds off his claws piercing her skin before he froze. Almost as though caught in a spell. He was stationary. She daresn't move due to his irrational nature but he was just staring into his paws before glancing up at her meek face that only whimpered in innocence.

He realised she had taken the choice not to kill him. He was originally faking his sleep for a trust test, but after he had fallen asleep due to his sheer weariness she had taken the choice to leave. Not kill him. He felt as though she had performed a good deed. Everyone in his life tried to kill him, but she didn't. Instead, she was staring directly into his eyes as he was returning the favour. Just like they had done when she first encountered him.

As much as Nick wanted to show any sort of aggression, her innocent, naïve and kind nature displayed in her passive actions had taken its toll on him and he was starting to soften up due to his physical hostage holding him mentally hostage.

However, he was only repeating the same question over and over as he desperately sought an answer. The crucial question that would lead to the understanding of her kindness.

 _Who is this bunny?_


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: So, this chapter is jam-packed with action, gore and the quantities of a** **dystopia**. **So this should be dramatic. Grab your popcorn and sit back, because this chapter is going to be a**_ **major _turning point in the story._**

 _Mental Ruins Part III_

The tod who was determined to display his aggression through flashing his razor-like teeth was now standing in a trance of regret. He questioned why he even captured her in the first place. That was before his naturally dark soul penetrated through the regret and led to him back to his emotionally hardy state. As she edged away from the unpredictable tod, he slammed his paws against the wall and caged her in his arms.

"What are doing to me?!"

Judy was surprised that he asked such a question despite the honesty of it. She was doing something to him, that was clear. He just needed to know what. In the minuscule speech she'd actually spoke, she'd managed to push him to the edge of his sanity.

"What?! I'm not doing anything! All you're doing is pushing me up against a wall every half hour! I don't think I can do anything!"

The pose he was pullin made Nick so badly want to drag her onto the couch with one lascivious move right there and break the law by doing so. Acting as a catalyst to his ever raising libido, the height of spring was right around the corner and if he was to act impulsively, that bunny would be on top of him in a heartbeat whether she wanted it or not. All these erotic thoughts sourced from one pose he was pulling right then. It was, if not the most, sexual pose he could have pulled that caused a deep tremor of fear to dwell from the bunny below him. That pinning against the wall with a light smirk, muzzles almost at the point of contact and her fear of what would happen if he got in full control of her. It wasn't just him feeling that type of tension in the silence, she could also. Judy wasn't helped due to the smell his potent musk. "Carrots, whatever you _are_ doing, just stop."

* * *

"20? You gotta be kidding me. I ain't doin' sod all for that price." A cocky weasel was standing before a shadowed figure with a long bushy tail. You could have mistaken it for Nick if he had not been halfway across the country or that this figure had wider hips and a more feminine body. A sigh erupted from the fox who currently daunted over the weasel with her sparsley grown whiskers and light scar across her muzzle, the body part that wasn't clothed in darkness.

However, the figure proceeded to arise from her throne and after shooting the weasel with a glare that was only visible due to the twinkle in her seemingly grey eyes bouncing right at him, the weasel was grasped by the throat before she started clasping down and after she heard his struggles, she raised him up to her height whilst sternly uttering "It wasn't a decision." Right into his faces ofgrimace. She flipped out her trusty dagger and sliced the weasel's throat without hesitation and she muttered to herself after his dying screech rang out. "Why do I have to everything myself?"

* * *

"Okay then, if you're so convinced that I'm a witch then why don't you go and tell the guards outside?" Judy was becoming sassy once she assured herself from given actions that he wasn't going to harm her.

"'Cause you'll just be hung and I need you alive for that message, besides the fact that I'm the most wanted person in the entire country right now!" Nick knew the vital point and he was, sure enough, missing it out.

"Oh yeah, I'll be hung?! You're on the run from the entire country, so I doubt anyone is gonna believe what comes out of your black lined mouth." Nick screwed his face in a contemptuous and beguiled manner.

"Is that supposed to be an insult?" She blushed, embarrassed by his remark that outlined the weakness of her argument.

"It doesn't matter whether it was supposed to be an insult or not, you're still a coward." She said it with a slight hint of slyness implemented, intriguing him into a deep pit of anger and lividness.

"Pfft! A coward?! I am more of a mammal than you'll ever be!" Nicks tone was now raised to the point where people in the street were noted of his whereabouts and that the dull, lopsided house was no longer clothed with webs and blanketed with dust.

"Tell that to my sister… my father… and me."

"Going for a ram is _not_ cowardly!"

"What are you on about?"

"Your sister…" Nick's voice began to evolve into a croaky melody when he spoke in a low tone as his shouting worked its way into his voice box. He sighed as he took a seat on the first step of his staircase. His arrow still stuck in the wall before him.

He pulled his hood off and revealed his face for her to see in detail and before he could finish it, Judy gripped what he was going to say. "…was not meant to die. My sister died to your poor archery! What is your problem?! You're a monster, you're-"

"He screamed! I couldn't do anything! That arrow was going to your sister anyway! Don't think that this is all about your sister, you're as much to blame for where you are how as any. You wouldn't understand, you're not the one using a bow!"

"Just because I'm not a bowman, it doesn't mean I have to lose my sister to one. In fact, you're no man, you're not even a mammal, you're no one. You rip life away with your bare paws as though it's some sort of game; you want me to be your get out of jail free card and that's not happening. Keep me hostage all you like, you won't _ever_ get me to go and lie through my teeth to the king!" Nick felt rather piqued at her sudden deceitful attitude, so decided to remind her who had the power in this instance.

"You know I could easily do anything I want to you right now." Judy's mouth moistened and her blood ran cold at the risqué thought of those large black paws touching anywhere on her petite, yet hardy body. Nick was getting at the fact he had the power and strength to harm her I any way he wanted but Judy was thinking more along the lines of more and more coarse natured thoughts until she was might as well have been lying right through her teeth when Nick asked her if she was okay. Sure he was a cold-blooded assassin, but he did consider the welfare of his hostage if she was to fulfil her purpose derogated by him.

"Look, _fox_ , I don't want to know you and neither you, me, so surely you can just let me go and I won't whisper a peep to anyone."

Nick replied rather set in his answer. "That's a nopey from Nicky." He was rather playful even in tough situations and managed to display this to the bunny who thought she'd just encountered a bipolar and impulsive fox.

Nick laughed as Judy crossed her grey arms like a kit and thumped her foot rapidly against the ground at the sound of a compromise not even coming close to her arms' reach. She also felt rather contemptuous by his childish answer that he used to mock her sense of power in turn for his. In the whole, she as becoming increasingly piqued by his behaviour and especially from his remarks. She could just leave or cry for help, but _that_ fox would kill her with him if she did so, she knew he would.

At this point, she just winding herself up by questioning who got her into the situation she was in in the first place. Every answer led herself back to full depositing text blame on him. She screwed her face with scorn and as she set him with an undoubtedly aggressive glare, he placed his paws on his knees and got right into her face. "Is our bunny getting angry? Aw isn't that adorable?!"

The last reaction Nick expected was what he got. That being a grey pawful of fury heading towards his snout.

Nick got knocked back and consequently lost his poise from Judy's deceptively powerful slap. Before he had a chance to regain his balance, Judy pushed him to the ground, the blood from his snout gushing out and staining his fur a deeper red than it currently stood and causing him to feel a sudden heap of pain as his head was smashed to the floor in attempt to get revenge by the deceitful bunny. She continued by throwing her paws around his neck in a sudden impulse to give him of a taste of what he was doing to other people and whilst not only strangling him, she was taking deep scratches from his talons that swiped menacingly in an effort to save his life from the suddenly deranged bunny. He tried prying her off him and as he took his pale face to a point where all he could see was white, he took a last-ditch effort to bite her arm. That somehow worked as she pulled her now saw arm back in pain and shook it in attempt to soothe the currently painful arm she had.

He didn't stop and used the last bit of energy he had to bite through the skin and rip through her sinews in an effort to prevent her from putting him into that state again. Before she had a chance to deal any more damage he kicked her away and rapidly breathed with a great deal of stress on his mind. Both glaring at each other, Judy finally took her eyes off Nick to direct her vision towards the dagger and he followed her eyes to meet the branded steel that laid merely metres away from them both. After glancing back up at each other, the current blood drowning rabbit and the oxygen-deprived panting fox crawled along the floor in a race to grab the metal.

Despite Nick's size he still lost the life or death competition and Judy fell into the possession of the dagger that was hungry for fox flesh. He kicked her away from the doe due to him being winded by her punch in their race that caused him to hold his paw on his ribs, not only in pain from the punch, but the loss of oxygen he was receiving that he so dearly needed to recover from her attempted murder.

Before she got a chance to slice his throat she was kicked away from the physically distressed fox, however, she did manage to slice his leg fairly deep. She felt as though now was her chance and hastily gripped the dagger in her sweaty, blood-drenched palm and as Nick noticed the doe getting back up again, he was startled by the sudden introduction of a knife dangling inches away from his chest. He retaliated by pushing back on ever strengthening bunny and managed to keep himself in a position where, if he was in a fit state he would be able to fight, however, in the ragged state he was in with the loss of energy, he was hopeless and deemed himself as a lost cause.

Finding the last bit of strength he had, he kicked her off him and whilst she stumbled up he did as well but quickly succumb to his paws and knees as they supported him off the ground whilst he spat out the blood he'd acquired from the countless number of senseless punches she'd gave him.

"KILL ME!" He screamed as he finished with a splutter and a cough, both filled with blood. He was the victim for the first time in his life and he didn't like it. The pain, the suffering, the threat of his life. Before she had a chance to reconsider her actions, the knife she'd been grasping for quite some time now in order to end the nimble tod's life went flying through the air towards his head. She missed as he naivety in any type of combat couldn't be any higher. He flopped to the floor and falls on top of the dagger with a chuckle, before laying as stiff as a corpse.

She walked up to him and before she got an opportunity to examine her first kill, Nick was 'magically' revived and ended up slashing he calve muscle. He shakily stood up and pinned her to the wall of his house in distress. Holding the dagger firmly in his right paw that sat at the end of the arm used to restrain her by the neck, his left paw was free and he firmly clenched it before licking his lips with a smile.

He dug his knuckles into her gut before beating it against her ribs. The slam of his fists didn't come lightly either and caused her to already shriek in pain, let alone his knees that pushed one of her kneecaps out of place and the other one to the point of strenuous pain. She followed that painful experience with an uppercut and a right hook, smashing her face into receiving some of the blow. She sagged to the floor in such dense angst from her knee and he ceased his actions in another attempt to regain his breath. Without the addition of his other heavy blows, her kneecap was intensely painful and as much as she wanted to shove it back into place she couldn't psych herself up to do it and now she accepted her fate and sat silent glaring into Nick's eyes with watering ones. The sun was currently setting and her eyes glimmered with pleads as the strip of light from the semi-open curtains provided light. She was already crying in pain but this was just emotional pain knowing that everything and everyone she knew was going to live their lives without her. The faces of her parents, siblings and any other important member of her life flashed before her eyes in the glare of the sun and pleaded for his forgiveness. That was only after causing a major disruption by crawling on the floor, crying and screaming in pain.

After she'd thoroughly regretted her decision to try and take him on, the fox who she first found hot was her decided last thought. She looked at him and when seeing the state he was in, she felt disgusted with herself. But now he stood in front of her, seemingly desperate to see bunny entrails and licked his lips as he grasped his dagger.

* * *

The fox's place of residence was intruded by one other shady fox that was as deeply trained as Nick in the art of combat and rebellion. However, this wasn't a he, this was a she.

The fox named Licia trailed around Nick's shabby excuse of a house and ended up at the rear with the cover of the forest. Licia, being a canine who'd trained herself to climb, could climb trees with ease and often did so when being hunted or spectating some mass tragedy she had started mischievously. This time was out of spite for Nick and the fact he'd killed one of her friends didn't exactly land him on the nice list. He was on the hit list and as she heard the heated physical discord in its process inside she grinned and muttered the phrase "two birds with one stone" followed by a light chuckle. Licia took a black stone out her pocket and without hesitating used a rock to strike flint and send sparks under the rear of Nick's house.

The small sparks quickly set alight and smouldered the lower rear of the house in flames. Nick was putting his hostage in place and possibly in the ground if he carried on with his malicious doings, so didn't take note of the smell of smoke surrounded the room. It was a combination of both his scent receptors being damaged by her punches and slaps along with the fact that all he could smell was blood.

Judy could smell the smoke and before long Nick started coughing. Lancing around he noticed a thick black fog gulping the room and he was going to let himself succumb to that. Dashing through the main hallway he could hear small weeps behind him from the doe and with complete disregard for her and her wellbeing, he sprinted through the small gap still open and as he jumped out he rolled when he hit the ground as the trench to the rear of his house was a major downside but despite that he was safe. He glanced at the house and caught sight of Judy struggling to breathe and slowly drowning in the sheer density of the smoke.

Nick glanced at the ground and held his eyes tight shut in order to prevent the blaze taking his mentality down the road he was trying to stay away from.

He muttered the word "fuck" under his breath and jumped over the trench again and into his kitchen. The flames scraping his clothes as he made the suicidal leap back across for one rabbit. The world seemed to run in slow motion as Nick leapt across. The bunny was his prime objective and thinking he would land on the kitchen floor flat footed was a horrific assumption that questioned his sanity. He missed the window by merely millimetre and using his wits, he clawed into the wood and scraped down it until his claws were the only things holding him up from the fall below. Hastily pulling himself up, not only because of the snapping but also the underestimated strength his claws alone could take, he could feel at least one starting to pull to its limits and didn't want to lose another and wait for it to grow again. Clambering up the wood and dropping to the kitchen floor in order to avoid the smoke was not a good idea as the flames engulfed the kitchen long ago. He quickly brushed himself down to destroy any small pockets of fire he'd picked up in order to prevent them fully engulfing his clothing. His jacket was already on fire due to him landing on flames and he quickly sacrificed it to the fire eating the rear of his house away. The tod ran through to the living room and after collecting his weapons, his bow across his bare back, his arrows in their holster, his dagger in its sheath and his glove in his pocket, he picked up the rabbit and cradled her like a child as he entered the kitchen only to find that the blaze had destroyed the rear and sent some of the wood into the trench. Nick went back on himself and the semi-conscious doe in his arms was taking shallower breaths by the second and Nick was in the process of holding his breath in order to keep his lungs from being filled with the disgustingly black substance that shortened breath and lifespan. He managed to prevent both of them from breathing any of it in as he cupped Judy's mouth with his paw and stopped her breathing altogether. Giving her some of his fresh breath through the form of sharing each other's lips, he woke her and firmly fixing his paw over her mouth whilst her gaping eyes glanced around her and her surroundings a multitude of times in disbelief for what was happening. She tried to push his paw off her mouth and as Nick sprinted down the corridor, he stepped out onto the roof that currently stood unsupported and attempted to prevent her from taking any damage from the fall by throwing her as lightly as he could onto the river bank beside the trench. Nick in the meanwhile needed to grab something from his room. Opening the door he went flying back from the explosion he created due to the flames worming their way up and into his room and causing a backdraft to form. Without even having a chance to think about his injuries he flung back up again ignoring the deafening sound rigning in his ears and smashed the door open and dashed inside the bomb site to get the one thing he really needed. Ever second he spent rummaging around was another second off his already rapid breaths.

Rejoicing due to his new found stash of cash and a few homemade bandages, he stuffed every last coin and scrap of material he had into his trouser pockets and on his way to the roof the glance back to remember the house he owned was not a good idea as Licia, a fox eager for Nick's death decided to bring it early and despite her fire hoping to kill him and Judy, both escaped, well one did. Nick was knocked to the floor and kicked him off her. She placed her knees on his legs and drew her dagger whilst muttering a few words that fuelled Nick to draw him and swipe it across this foreign fox's chest. "Nice eyes you got there." Nick used his other paw to block the incoming blade and pushed it away gradually before holding his knife up to her neck. Nick was second away from making the kill before he heard the bunny he'd dropped onto the safe side of the trench shouted his name in the hopes that he was still alive. All in the meanwhile flames caused the floor around the brawling pair to collapse and Licia soon fell to the ground floor and fell into the flame-filled floor. Nick noticed how there was no screams or any type of sign she was experiencing pain, but he didn't take the chance of looking back down especially after he'd back away and got to his feet in order to make the jump.

Sprinting through the burning building out onto the roof that had acted as an addition to the bonfire, Nick jumped and felt Licia yet again attempting to stop his life from continuing. Yet she couldn't. Her arms weren't long enough and she couldn't grasp his fur in a way where she could pull him back. He literally slipped right through her fingers and before she got a chance to jump the roof caved in and she managed to scramble back into the fire as Nick landed on his tender leg to be greeted with a patch of grass stained with blood and Judy passed out on top of that. He propped himself up and glanced back to see that the fox who had countlessly tried to kill him was now lobbing a Molotov towards the pair of mammals and she was pretty damn accurate. Nick got up onto his all fours and grabbed Judy's neck with a light nip and dragged her back from the crazed fox in his jaws.

He felt like resting but with the knowledge that her kneecap was displaced, he couldn't sit and watch. After checking her pulse and breathing he started to actually help her as he first cleaned her wounds and wrapped the bandages in his pocket around her arm he'd gnawed in order to relive the pain she was enduring. He was skilled in battle injuries like this as he dealt with them on a daily basis whether that be with himself or someone else, especially Finnick as he was a brawler. He tied them and held the roll in his mouth that he used for multiple amounts of uses in the last hour. Nick continued his treatment by cleaning her up and he did that by gliding his tongue over her bloodstained patches of fur. Fortunately, Judy wasn't conscious for that but he still left a couple of wet patches on her fur. He finished by delicately resting her knee on his lap. He'd seen worse but this was still bad. He felt around her knee in order to actually know where he was pushing it then he pushed sharp and hard in order in order to make sure he was doing it right and didn't have to do it again. Fortunately for him, he did it right first time and that suddenly snapped the doe back to her consciousness.

She glanced down and noticed she had a couple of bandages that Nick had made himself strapped around her deep cuts and some moist spots on her body where her blood was.

After assessing her state she tried to stand up and she could. She didn't have that horrible pain that sourced from her now healed knee. She had no knowledge of what happened apart from the fact that she felt a ton of pain when she woke up and that Nick was beside her wrapping bandages around his limbs whilst cutting it with his teeth. Nick was a lot more injured than Judy and coughed sporadically in order to relieve himself from the mass amount of smoke he'd inhaled. Judy was coughing but less frequent due to Nick's actions preventing her breathing in the hell pit.

Nick wiped his nose from the blood and tried to rub out any blood he had on him before he gave in and licked himself making him embarrassed as Judy was beside him. He finished cleaning his wounds and tending to them and instead laid down with a massive sigh. He glanced up at the sky and his bow that had come on the end of a burin was the only thing to stop him falling asleep due to the discomfort. He wasn't in it for the comfort though, he just wanted a time to breathe from what just happened.

Without even thinking Judy leant over and wrapped her arms around Nick's bare torso whilst nuzzling her way into his chest and for the first time, Nick had got a hug. He didn't return it, but he could feel her thanks, he could feel that she forgave him for the fight they had. All the feelings of hatred were discarded in that split second where Judy felt the need to convey her happiness and thankfulness towards him. She could see past the heartless exterior and see that he was more than just a fox. He was Nick and he had a life and his own personality. In that split second where the stars gazed upon them, she forgot he was an assassin.

Nick, in the meanwhile, was just in disbelief how he did all of that for a bunny.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: I hope you're l enjoying the story so far because I sure as heck am when writing it, but I assume you are if you're reading this far into the story!**_ _ **Holy HECK has it been long since I was last active. I've been writing daily but I just didn't upload for a very long time, I'm sorry guys. :( I'll try and upload a little more now that I've sorted some stuff out. I hope you are all still doing good though :)**_

 _Mental Ruins part IV_

"Thank you." Even though Judy didn't understand why she was so special, she did know that he'd saved her life and answered her wounds' cries for help, still bounding her for an angst-filled recovery though. But, he even patched her up before he did himself despite his more severe state and even cleaned up the blood that drooled down her fur with one long lick. That wasn't including the displaced joint he'd corrected and saved her a whole lot of pain in the long run.

He didn't even know why he saved her. He risked his life and ran into almost certain death for a bunny. He didn't know what had come over him and he hated himself for it. He was just as ready to kill her as he ever was when he first spotted the flames and yet, seconds later he was saving her life.

He blamed it down to his excuse of needing her for a distraction perfect for the needy military, but even he couldn't deny it was more than that. He felt as though this bunny was someone he had to protect, someone he had to show his natural side to and most of all, someone he had to save. He didn't care about the violence tossed around and the constant reminders he gave her of his power and dominance but in the state he was in, that wasn't going to happen.

She wasn't even going to try and pull something like she did prior to the blaze due to the sheer pain she was in, she felt as though the tod in her arms cared for her wellbeing and to some extent, he did. Well, if 'to some extent' meant giving her air when she had none and tending to her wounds then Nick seriously needed to reconsider his meaning of caring.

She sensed his naivety when it came to friendly affection and she tried to make it less awkward by explaining herself. "Thanks for everything you did back there. You saved my life and you didn't leave me to die. I know what you did and I know that you didn't mean to kill my sister. I know you didn't mean to cause what you have for both of us, I know that you are more than an assassin. Point is, you are more than to what meets the eye. You saving my life by risking your life and ending up like how you are is astonishing and I know that the 'fox in a hood' wouldn't do that, you just showed me that there's more to you than you." She made sure not to wince in the sheer pain whilst talking to him; she didn't want him to think she was weak, even when she was basically immobile.

"Your sister, I knew her." Judy perked her ears up and pulled her head out of his chest to meet his eyes staring blankly at the ground. "She was waiting outside the bar a few years ago and when we started talking we ended up how we were. We were good friends to the point she found out what I was doing to earn money. She hated me after that and when I saw the doe I'd hit that night, I felt terrible for the fact she was a figure I knew." At this point, Nick was lying about his regret and attempting to appear more empathetic in order to gain this doe's trust and let her see he was more than a cold-blooded killer. However, the conversation just aggravated her, he was talking about her sister, the one he had murdered and Judy wasn't over it. Then, just as all the feelings of affection were discarded, he decided to be real with her and that had an extremely negative effect.

Judy was speechless and before she even got a chance to absorb what he'd just told her, he continued. "The reason I had to leave the city was that of the military and the people against me and I couldn't stand to be in that unruly mess I've made."

"You're so selfish!"

"Excuse me?"

"You drag me miles from the city to tell me that this is all your fault and that this has nothing to do with me! You just saved my life, for what? To drag me on another 'adventure'? I am going through so much pain emotionally and physically now and you don't even care about how I feel! You're such an- argh!"

Judy was speechless and before she even got a chance to absorb what he'd just told her, he continued. "Look, the reason I had to leave the city was that of the military or I couldn't stand to be in that mess I'd created. If you don't believe me then that's up to you." Nick attempted to stand up and strenuously did so. "Look, I'm going to the Heaths to find an old friend because I need him more than ever right now." Judy gazed at him with awe and all the words he was uttering appeared as slurs because of her wonder for what this tod was capable of if he was friendly as she brooded whether to just forgive him for his slip up of mentioning her sister. "I just saved your life! You want me to throw you back in the flames because that can be arra-" Nick winced in pain before he got chance to finish, his marred chest going through the pinnacle of the angst. He followed his shriek with a series of coughs and Judy just laid and watched.

"What's the point of even being here?"

She started to prop herself up before Nick grabbed her wrist followed by a last cough to which his paw he used to cover his mouth appeared coated in blood, dwelling a silent and telepathic fear in both of them. "You go back to the city now; you're just as done for as I am." Judy's ears perked up before swinging herself around to meet the wounded fox's gaze. "They saw you walk into my house and the 'shady fox' who lives there is going to be none other than the one with a bounty on their head." Judy shrugged her shoulders before Nick let go of her wrists and let her start to stroll away. "They are going to be looking for you and when they find you, you will be tortured." Judy knew very well that he could protect her. She paused for a moment before glancing back.

"I could just walk away."

"And you could just die." He shrugged his shoulders before standing up. "I mean, what are you to me? A random doe. Just remember that I could have left you to die in the house without me even receiving a scratch. I ran back in, gave you air, picked you up, ran through a burning building and fought off another fox. If that doesn't suffice as selfless, what will?" Judy grumbled distinctively whilst facing the ground. Nick placed his paws on his knees and rather strenuously straightened his stance before sighing due to her reluctance.

"Give me one reason why you want me to come with you?" Judy asked with a slight rise in pitch in her voice due to the acceptance of his idea.

Nick stuttered for an excuse which didn't contradict his current hardy appearance. That being because the main reason he wanted her around was that he enjoyed the company and his cold heart only just realised that. She clearly respected him and with her retaliation to suck up and take what he was giving to her, he returned a bit of that along with a light sense to protect her now that he could feel as though she was in the same boat as him for her. She didn't have a choice but to live in the shadows, he knew how that felt and he knew that it was horrible to live with that.

"Because I know how you feel." Judy screwed her face in scorn for what he said.

"Know how I feel? Know how I feel?! You have no clue how it feels to lose your father, your sister, your home and your rights along with your health and friends!"

"Do you think that I wanted to become who I am? Do you think that my parents are still alive? Do you think that I wanted to lose all my friends? Do you think I wished for my house to burn down? Take a step into the real world because my parents were hanged just after I was born, I couldn't have any siblings, let alone losing them! So if you seriously think that I have had a happy life, think again!" Nick crushed the reality of his life on Judy, disclaiming his traumatic childhood and his pathetic excuse of a life to her. Nick lowered his tone and spoke in a hushed tone with a hoarse accent towards her. "Look, if you wanna leave, then just leave, but I..." Nick followed his explanation with an even lower spoken voice, too indistinguishable for even Judy's sensitive ears.

"If you're gonna speak, sp-"

Nick pull her ears down the side of his head to hide the blush arising in them whilst shutting his eyes tight, facing the ground in order to cause the least amount of embarrassment possible for him. "I just really…" He peered up and met her stern glare before diverting his answer. "… don't want you to lea- die to my paw."

"Oh, how romantic." Nick glanced up at her with a face filled with regret before Judy displayed a little smirk and started to speak again. "However, as you care for me…"

"What? How- I never said that!"

"I will grudgingly stay with you, Nicky. Can I call you Nicky? How about sweetheart? What about-"

"No! I get your point! I just don't want you to die, that doesn't mean that I care or anything, but you made it this far, so you might as well… not die. Sticking with me is your best bet at that." Nick was blushing at this point and Judy giggled slightly at his behaviour. She could clearly see that he cared and after adding everything up, she turned the frown and scowl she had plastered across her muzzle merely seconds ago into a triumphant smirk. "I'm sorry, I haven't been myself the last few days. I don't want to- you know: hurt you any more than I have."

"Where are we going." Judy's blush shown in her ears recognised her acknowledgement of his compassion and despite her trying to ignore it in order to ignore her true feelings towards the deeply emotional tod, she gave it away with the blush which totally contradicted her aim by changing the subject.

Nick cleared his throat before changing his tone of voice to one of a more serious and abrupt one. "The town." Judy gaped her eyes at his sudden idea.

"No. We are not going back there." The fox who had rocked the world for her was asking to make her life worse, she knew it, he knew it, they both knew it. Risking their lives collectively for nothing more than their own safety was not something on either of their bucket lists but that's where they had ended up and there was no denying that they both felt a little anxiety from that counter-intuitive idea.

"It's either that or the heaths." With that option on the table, the fox with a bunny over his shoulders was trekking in the general direction Nick's compass told him was south-west. However as he walked she was moaning in pain with each step, each stride he took becoming a chance of dislodging her ever so fragile knee.

Neither of them had spoken for hours due to Nick's acceptance of her choice to pursue the heaths instead of the vibrant city Nick thrived off. He knew his 'contacts' would notice his abstinence from wet work, mounting the stress ever further on his already frail body. Judy forgot about his increased injuries and despite his limp and his heavy breathing, she disregarded them.

They weren't even near the heaths and the dawn starting to rise over the horizon that highlighted the morning dew glistened with the sudden introduction of light. Nick noticed the night sky starting to fade from sight and transition into the purple haze that misted up the edge of the globe. "Can we stop now?"

Judy didn't even bother to look at him to answer. "Not yet." Nick stopped and rested against a tree, letting her down. He realised his submissiveness was costing him his health and didn't hesitate to change that.

"No? We are stopping." Judy sighed in the sudden change of attitude he had, he was back to his captor attitude, as she liked to call it. He frowned at her. He took a seat on a log and Judy glanced back at him. She forgot about his lack of a top and wasn't particularly prepared for the amount of Fox she was getting an eyeful of. "Sit." She was snapped from her ludicrous imagination when the fox that sourced the thoughts nudged her with his paw.

She sat next to him, obeying his commands. Without any doubt, he knew she was going to wince in angst when he performed what he planned. He pulled her leg up into his lap and rolled his eyes as she tried to cover her pain. "I swear, if this isn't healing I'm gonna sere your leg off." She gulped with her naïve attitude to the whole situation, Nick knew she was trying to appear hardy and stable as though she could defend herself from any of the attackers Nick mentioned, but he knew for a fact that she was enduring the same, if not worse, pain than he was by the consistent limps that was the result of each set of strides she had taken. He put a slight bit of pressure on her bandaged wound and all the pain suppressed by her own mind came out in the form a sharp shriek, forcing birds to flee from their nests within a five hundred foot radius. He immediately withdrew his arms from her knee and gaped his eyes, speechless and clueless as what to do.

"Jesus, Nick!" She felt tears brimming her eyes in the intense angst she was experiencing. "What did you do?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." She swiftly turned her head towards him with a face of serious compassion. He noticed and wittily added to it. "- that much." He reconciled the bunny before him and pulled the bandage holding her knee in place down and when she tried to move her leg, she bit her lip so hard whilst immediately grasping his spare paw.

Before responding, Nick swiftly pulled his paw away from her, suddenly jumping her into becoming self-aware of where her paw was. She blushed before she stuttered out a question. "Do you want to find a lodge in a town somewhere, I can't walk."

"Yeah, you didn't bother to ask me that earlier?" Nick was peeved at her self-centred attitude and even though he was willing to carry her to the next town, she didn't appreciate that much, unwilling to note his injuries.

"Shall we just get there?" Nick mumbled a series of curses and before long, she was over his shoulder in a fireman's lift heading to the nearest aura of light away from the direction in which the sun was due to rise; towards the heaths.

The fox that had a sleeping doe on his shoulder waltzed into the small arable town which he presumed to have nothing more than an inn. Just receiving glares from the locals, he shrugged them off and headed towards to the centre in the hopes a spare room would be up for offer.

He was unaware of how eccentric he really seemed. He was a critically injured fox with a bare toned torso and a bow drawn across his back with a quiver on his left thigh accompanying the sheath on the opposite thigh. However, the main thing that really turned heads was the fact that he was carrying a doe over his shoulder in a similar state to him.

Nick would have used the incognito route if he had been his usual self. Even one mammal that saw him was deemed as a threat and would have used the cover of darkness to conceal his identity, taking advantage of his nocturnal traits to guide himself. But, today he felt so drained due to the mass expedition he'd embarked upon.

He noticed the small wooden sign of a small thatched lodge swinging as the wind briskly rocked it to and fro. The dislodged stone steps before him provided a path up to the lodge and as he let the door creak open, he felt the warm air clasping his body which the cold air had been nipping at for the past few hours.

The innkeeper seemed to be absent and after pinging the bell a countless number of times, the vexed and rather an independent dhole made her way downstairs. She caught sight of the fox that littered on posters pinned up around the southern region of the country and immediately recognised him by that bow and quiver along with the scar drawn across the fox's ear. She placed her head in her paw before glancing up and strongly stating her point. "I'm not taking a fugitive." Nick sighed.

Before long that same canine was knocked unconscious in the basement whilst Judy and Nick slept above her. The unlikely duo slept in a double bed, the only bed available and as much as Nick wanted to sleep on the floor, he would have been most likely woken up by splinters or the bitter cold.

Nevertheless, they were entranced in lucid dreams fuelled by their own desires.


End file.
